Richard X. Heyman: Basic Glee

For fans of jangly guitars, great harmonies and old-fashioned song craft, this CD is like manna from power pop heaven. Richard X. Heyman’s Basic Glee is a celebration of the various sounds you can get from guitar and while other instruments make cameo appearances, this is about six and twelve string guitars, electric and acoustic and the musical glee they provide.

Culled from 30 new songs, these 14 that made the cut offer a wide range of variety in tempo and topic, and not a clunker amongst them. Once again, the under-appreciated Heyman comes through, and this time with his best effort to date.

For those as yet uninitiated to the many talents of Richard X. Heyman, the singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist started out at age five behind a drum kit and later moved on to piano, guitar, bass, singing and songwriting.

By 1986, he had an EP and two years later had the first ever home-recorded album to get reviewed by Rolling Stone. This album (Living Room!)was later re-released by Cypress/A&M. His follow up to that, 1990’s Hey Man! remains to this day a strong CD of great melodic pop.

It was a long haul before the third CD. In 1998, Cornerstone was released to yet more critical acclaim. Heyman had grown musically, and the songs seemed a bit more complex, a mite less immediately accessible. In 2001, he released an EP that featured Herman’s Hermits own Peter Noone (Heyman, Hoosier & Herman).

But Basic Glee seems to be the best yet – glorious harmonies and delicious melodies, perfect fills and skilled performances that defy the reality of it being almost all a one-man show (wife Nancy Leigh does lend her bass-playing skills on a few tracks, and she engineered the CD).

The music gets better with every listen. “Everywhere She Goes” is a delicious reminisce of a love gone bad played on a Fender Stratocaster, regrets and wishes flying in the face of the hard evidence even after ultimate efforts have been expended.

“Pauline” is one of the most infectious songs I’ve heard in a long time, a love song about one’s dependence upon this stolid voice of reason, and how just a mental reminder might be enough to pull him through again. Heyman says he wrote this one originally as a piano instrumental some 30 years ago — it sounds incredible today, plenty of backing harmonies and a nice build with guitar fills behind the piano.

Love songs, sweet love songs — who can ever get enough of them? “One Way Feeling” is the sad tale of loving and not being loved in return: “I thought I’d found her / the girl who could be everything I longed for / The one I could give all I had and much more / She glanced straight at me, her eyes were so concealing / And right then I knew it was my own one way feeling”. Sweet guitars point up this tale of sad fixation (a Yamaha acoustic twelve-string and a Martin, for the record).

Heyman’s expertise as a drummer serves him well here, as on many of the tracks. He manages just the right touch with subtle rolls and rhythms that serve the songs so well. The more you listen, the more obvious are such subtleties.

“Let It Go” is a throwback musically to kind of well-written pop classics of yesteryear. Just superb rich music — well structured — with the words complementing the rhythmic structures here, and the nuances of guitar fills are perfect within the overall curtain of gorgeous guitar sounds. A great lyric spells out the title’s advice for someone “dumbfounded by a kiss” whose world is about to fall apart. The kicker is revealed at song’s end: “I’ve been there too / And I did what you’re trying to do / And you don’t even know I loved her even more than you”.

The rhythmic interest that Heyman puts into his songs works even on the slower tempos. “When Evening Comes” features some amazing bass line work from Heyman to finesse the guitars that complement the vocals so well. This is a delicate love song about the time of day when a couple gets to reunite after a hard day — beautifully related, a rare straight ahead love song from Richard to wife Nancy that lets poetic lyrics and guitars convey the feelings well.

“Diminishing Her Return” is another song that offers wonderful instrumental counter-points while relating a tale about loss/divorce: “So like it or not / She’s making you pay back what your warned / The minute you stop / Diminishing her return”.

“Broken Umbrella” rides on a galloping rhythmic guitar riff (this one serves up a Les Paul and a Rickenbacker twelve-string) to convey the image of broken umbrellas as wreckage strewn on a battlefield and ties it in with feelings of being left behind.

Heyman claims that The Lovin’ Spoonful were something of an inspiration for “Vantage Point High” and John Sebastian would be proud. This song talks about seeing things for what they are, taking action on your dreams and ignoring the rules of others — a reminder that there is no time to kill.

“Wishful Thinking” is another tale of lost love, related in an R&B style. Here Heyman shows his “soul” side, complete with background “oohs,” organ, and a guitar lead that shows Heyman is no lightweight.

“What In The World” is about a man at his wit’s end, wondering how and what got him to where he is now. It’s more lost love and reminisces, but captured again in a tremendously infectious style with harmonies and great cascading guitars.

Glee is not the basis for most of these lyrics, and this especially is the case with the fragile “Waterline.” This slow-paced ballad is about going underwater to escape a bad relationship. However, the wonderful Martin guitar sounds might make you forget this beautiful sounding song is about a suicide attempt.

Heyman says that “That Will Be The Moment” is another old one (this one only twenty years old). With more lush harmonies and great guitars, it sounds fresh to me. It’s just further evidence that Heyman knew how to write a great three-minute pop song even then.

“Hand Prints” is musical homage to every one who ever played in a high school rock ‘n’ roll band. Heyman grew up in Plainfield, NJ, in the 1960s, and references it here (Kenyon Avenue, the Strand movie theater, the Frontier Diner). Again Heyman shows he can still handle the rock end of things well (Fender Telecaster and Rick twelve-string guitars share leads, while Nancy Leigh handles the power bass line with a Hofner).

“My Lorraine Bow” is a musical dialogue between a woman who doesn’t want to be left behind and a man who knows that he will do so eventually, but is willing to lie for now in order not to hurt her anymore. As on almost every track, fine harmonies abound within some highly melodic pop.

Heyman is a master of the art of the home studio, as well as a great old-fashioned craftsman when it comes to writing songs. Recorded primarily at Heyman’s home “Tabby Road Studio,” Basic Glee already has become a fast personal favorite for me.

Talented Heyman also has a new book for sale (see his website for more information) entitled Boom Harangue wherein he recounts tales of his life to date in the wacky world of rock ‘n’ roll. Is there any limit to this man’s talents?

If you love the sounds and textures of guitars and sweet melodic harmonies, you’ll love this CD. Why don’t more people know about him? That remains one of the bigger mysteries — and I hope I can do my part to change that. If you love Heyman’s earlier efforts, I guarantee you will be ecstatic about this new one. And if you don’t know Heyman and his music — do yourself a favor and discover him as soon as possible. I promise you’ll basically be, well, full of basic glee.